CD Reading System - Cyrus Audio CD t + Metrum Amethyst DAC



1 249,00 €


2 863,00 €

Descrizione del pacchetto prodotti

The wonderful discovery of a perfect match. The Cyrus Audio CD transport "CD t" model includes many components of the 'top' Xt model. The data retrieve takes place with an ultra-reduced reading error, and they feel it; custom mechanics and servo-control. Two great machines for an incredible absolute quality and price/quality ratio.

Please contact us to find the right digital cable for your system.

Descrizione dei singoli prodotti

CD transport using the award winning Servo Evolution technology.

​AN AUDIOPHILE CD TRANSPORT WIDELY SEEN AS THE BEST CD TRANSPORT IN ITS CLASS.

It uses many of the top end components put into our flagship CD Xt Signature. With our Servo Evolution disc reading engine, the CD t houses many advanced components which make the sound it produces absolutely stunning. Which is why this product is widely regarded as the best CD transport in its class, even outperforming its more expensive competitors.

The reason the CD t can deliver such unusual value is Cyrus’s multi-award winning CD technology Servo Evolution (SE2) which is able to read more data ‘right first time’ from a CD than any other CD system. 

A multi-regulated power supply allows the Servo Evolution software to work with miniscule precision, pulling huge amounts of data from your disc and transporting that to a separate DAC without adding or taking away anything from the music itself.

This allows the Servo Evolution software (which has been updated specifically for this product) to work with high precision, pulling huge amounts of data from your disc without adding or taking away anything from the music itself.

Among many component upgrades, an advanced loader has been chosen for this audiophile CD player, with LED disc detection technology for better detection and loading control.

Servo Evolution

Our SE platform is specifically engineered to retrieve data from an audio CD with the fewest errors. To provide ideal data output for hi-fi, Cyrus controls the whole electromechanical servo system providing superior quality audio than previously possible with conventional drives.

Pure Transport Operation

By removing the onboard DAC, the CD t works purely as a digital transport. Removing additional circuitry allows the CD t to focus purely on data retrieval and a high performance digital output.

Connectivity

The CD t benefits from optical and coaxial outputs which provide connectivity to a variety of DAC’s. CD t can be connected to other Cyrus units via our unique MC-BUS connections.

Precision Loading Drive

CD t features the latest generation of our slot load CD technology. This quiet and low contact mechanism provides myriad benefits to the traditional tray method of loading a CD whilst also de-cluttering the front panel for an improved aesthetic.

"An exceptionally talented transport for the asking price, the CD T delivers a performance that’s difficult to criticize".
"There's a level of transparency, clarity and insight that you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere at this price".

What Hi-Fi, 1st October, 2015

Servo Evolution CD Transport at a glance

Servo Evolution – the first audiophile standard CD platform. Whereas almost every other CD player uses a standard off-the-shelf disc reading platform with the focus on the DAC section, Cyrus took the unique move of creating something better: our own disc reading technology.

The benefit of the Cyrus Servo Evolution technology is the ability to pick up more data from the disc first time round rather than relying on error correction to fill in missing gaps in the data.

This supplies the DAC with up to 20% more information than the conventional design and explains the higher resolution that all Cyrus CD players are capable of producing.

All of our CD players now use our third generation servo firmware which provides audible improvements to the reading of CDs.

Benefits of Servo Evolution include:

• Pulls more data from the disc than typical disc-reading systems
• Up to 5 times fewer data errors
• Reads more data ‘right first time’ than any other CD system
• Less dependent upon error correction
• Lower noise interference
• Improved optic control accuracy

A standard CD-ROM drive is optimised for high speed data retrieval. It is not the best tool for reading a CD audio disc in high definition. Other proprietary drives are typically low cost, high volume designs with inevitable compromises in the early stages of the data retrieval process. In order to achieve the perfect sound replication that we strive for, it is simply not enough to take the data from the CD, feed it to a DAC and expect the best possible audio performance. It is commonly misunderstood that CD data retrieval is digital and therefore always perfect. The laser light reflected from the CD surface is converted into an electrical signal, which is in fact an analogue signal. The quality of this analogue signal is directly linked to the number of errors in the later digitising process. A good analogue light signal is completely dependent upon the ability of the servo systems to control the focus of the laser light spot, providing smooth tracking of the data stamped onto the disc. The Cyrus-designed system, unlike the off-the-shelf servo systems used by almost every other manufacturer, is optimised for audio data retrieval – and the proof is in the sound.

When evaluating our CD players please ensure that you use original CD’s to evaluate the performance and not copies of the originals (CD-R’s) as the burning engines in most CD burners devalue the benefits gained by our SE engineering. Not all CD burners do a good job of creating copies from the original disc and it’s a shame to compromise the fine engineering that makes our players sound so valuable, by feeding them with compromised information from the very start.

Cyrus developed the Servo Evolution hardware and firmware to attempt to resolve the problem of lost data as the disc is read. We refer to this suite of engineering as a CD ‘engine’ as it covers a collection of hardware and software engineering often rather too complex to interest a casual reader.

The problem:
Hi-Fi manufacturers generally do not have the deep specialist servo firmware experience or investment budget to use anything other than off-the-shelf (OEM) CD drive ‘kits’ developed for mass production (CD loader, laser, sled mechanism and firmware to drive this set of parts). The engineering to make the mechanical parts work reliably in the intended environment is complex and sophisticated and therefore expensive to develop. Economics mean OEM kits are developed for the largest customers such as automotive markets. Because disc drives contain small, complex and mass produced parts, they require sophisticated firmware to keep the mechanical parts positioned over the data spiral on the CD. Even more problematic is that the big customers need this to happen while, for instance, a car is bumping 1.5g vertical acceleration over a pothole!

The answer is to optimise the servo code for a tough environment and buffer the output into a powerful averaging system or error corrector to provide an unbroken data stream as the car bumps along. The resulting output will play but contain a high ‘bit error rates’ that need the errors, or gaps in data, filling in with an approximation of the data/music. Clearly this is a work around solution for a harsh car environment but not ideal for the sound quality standards of a high resolution HiFi system in your living room. However commercially it does work for many mass market applications where the subtle leading edge information that would raise the hair on the back of your neck at home, is unlikely to be missed at 50 MPH with 80db ambient background noise in a car. So this is fine for mass market applications but is a severely compromised source in the mind of a Cyrus hi-fi engineer.

By comparison, hi-fi is a tiny market by volume and it is therefore not attractive for large drive manufacturers to offer a special system. Cyrus desired a disc drive that could read data ‘right first time’ without repairing gaps with approximations through error correction algorithms.

The solution:
Because the needs of an in-car CD kit are very different from the needs of a domestic hi-fi, Cyrus had to decide if CD had a long enough life to make the substantial investment worthwhile. The decision was made and over 12 months three engineers worked to finish our unique SE (Servo Evolution) platform. The result was the world’s highest resolution CD engine. Our CD engine is very different from OEM kits as it runs the disc at 1x speed (not 50x for a PC drive) meaning we can optimise the controller motors to work much more accurately rather than just fast. We require accuracy rather than speed and this is where our SE system is so different to CD kits. So how good is the latest SE firmware and hardware? By comparison, Cyrus’ bit error rate delivers an output with 20% fewer errors than the next best system. In CD data terms, this is an enormous increase in resolution. Just take a moment to consider how much effort goes into gaining 5% improvement in amplifier noise or distortion. A 20% improvement in error rate means the error correction works infrequently, motors are rarely now asked to drag the laser sled back to re-read data, and focusing accuracy is maintained more of the time. The result of all this engineering is a data feed capable of greater subtlety and resolution because it gets more data from the disc ‘right first time’.

Traditionally, hi-fi designers have attempted to improve performance by focusing on post-servo options because their data quality is fixed by the needs of the mass market. Cyrus was motivated to develop SE because we believed that getting the data with greater accuracy was the correct engineering route as opposed to attempting to fix errors retrospectively. Because we have fewer errors, data is retrieved ‘right first time’, and therefore we have far less need for error correction, so the whole system is calmer with much reduced motor noise in our ground and power planes. Clearly not needing error correction nearly as often means our sound is a closer facsimile of the data on the CD because it is less ‘corrected’ and the players DAC section is not affected by power supply noise from motors in adjacent ground planes. It is also important to differentiate between those manufacturers who market a “special” buffering or correction system. These are not high resolution servo systems; they are attempts to improve on the generally available mass-produced OEM offerings made for the mass market and these kits are limited by lower resolution servo output.

The Amethyst is our new entry model using our praised "forward correction technology" . Due to this technology a real 24 bits performance is realized and probably the most advanced way to give R2R technolgy  new dimensions.

As a result music will be more exiting as  details on very low levels will be audible. The Amethyst  can meet the best systems today in terms of sound quality as it borrows all the good things from our top models Pavane and Adagio. Like her predecessor the Amethyst is designed for the same basic frame but  electronics have been redesigned for future tasks. In addition we have implemented a new and powerful headphone amplifier having its own volume control.

The Amethyst is using  two Transient R2R ladder Dac TWO modules. This simple design gave us lots of compliments and testimonials. Creating a high end dac has never been so simple. These modules can handle extreme high sampling rates but are limited to current industry standards which has its maximum (384kHz) on the USB input. The result of this process is an extremely fast and accurate behavior and brings  listening experience on a much higher level.

High resolution linearity plot of DAC TWO (please see image "1000 step linearity plot DAC TWO module"). The analyzer is struggling to show us the last bits down to -140 dB. In case more bits are involved the steps are shrinking and more resolution is available. This extreme linearity is realized by our forward correction techniques and improves reproduction of the lowest musical details.

Despite the fact that both dac modules are build on the same board an extremely high channel separation of 110 dB is realized. This contributes to flawless positioning of instruments. However, we do not only evaluate a result basing on measurements, because sometimes they are taken at the wrong place. The perception of a sensible human brain/ear system is very important. 

Still people do not realize the size of our dac modules (please see image of the DAC TWO on a credit card). For instance the Transient DAC TWO module has two R2R ladders, an FPGA and the I/V section under the hood. About half the size of a credit card and nothing to add except power and data. How simple can it be :-)

Just a note to discrete R2R ladders and why they cannot work properly (see
resolution table image):

1 no more accuracy than 0,01% so not more than 14 bits precision.
2 Too much temperature differences over the entire pcb leads to linearity problems.
3 Sensitive for pollution and humidity.

Therefore we only use lab grade laser trimmed ladder networks to get perfect
linearity and real 144 dB dynamic range. Next they should be encapsulated to
avoid mutually temperature changes and pollution. This table tells everything
but also tells you that more than 24 bits at the analog side is an Utopia due
to Johnson noise. Do not be fooled!!

How important proper signal routing is in case of mixed disciplines both analog and digital on one pcb. Further proper star ground can avoid any hum. Look at the picture named "New Generation DAC TWO proto dac board": DAC TWO used on a new proto board. An 882 Hz test tone at -90 dB is used but no rests of 50/100Hz is visible.

The headphone amplifier has 1W of output and gets his power from a powerfull 30VA power supply. When the the Amethyst is used as a dac  this power will be available for the  dac only.

Specification:

Working principle: 


Power: 

Mains voltage: 

Inputs: 


Outputs: 




Frequency response: 


Distortion: 

Noise floor: 

Output impedance: 

Sampling rate: 

Dimensions:

Weight:

Non oversampling dac. Forward  corrected, 1x  DAC TWO module pro channel . 

30 VA  torodial transformers. 

110/115V AC 220/230V AC 60/50Hz

1x optical, 2x coaxial  
and USB  

RCA : 2 Volts RMS.
Volume controled headphone connection.
1W power output/16 Ohms


1Hz - 20 khz -1dB. 44.1 kHz sampling. 
1Hz - 65 kHz -1dB .192 kHz sampling.

0.006 % THD 

-145 dB related to 2 Volt RMS

RCA 100 Ohm. Headphone output 3 Ohms 

Optical 44.1 - 96 kHz sampling rate. 
Coax : 44.1 -192 kHz .
USB:   44.1 kHz -384 kHz 

24 x 19 x 6 cm



2.5 kg.

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